One is a grandmother beloved by members of her party in an almost worshipful way, who charges six figures for speeches and has the media drooling to report everything she says.
The other is Sarah Palin.
Whenever a conservative woman enters politics and gains any kind of traction, the liberal media inevitably calls her “The Sarah Palin of ____.” They did it to Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, they did it to Joni Ernst in Iowa and just last week they did it to potential presidential candidate Carly Fiorina. The underlying premise of the articles is always that these women are as stupid as the Left’s caricature of Palin.
Outwardly the claims are about Republican women who seemingly come out of nowhere and have the potential to become party rock stars. It’s the rock star part that applies to Hillary Clinton. (Obviously she didn’t come out of nowhere, she rode there on her husband’s coattails.)
Clinton is being treated less like a presidential candidate and more like a celebrity. Instead of any kind of research into her policies or what she says, article after article is being written about what she eats. The way the press has handled her candidacy so far is more suitable for People Magazine than newspapers. The Washington Post even had a quiz on Wednesday asking whether people were tweeting at pop stars or Clinton.
The cult of worship around Clinton is akin to what Palin received after she was thrust into the spotlight by her vice presidential nomination. One could also say it is similar to the media’s fawning over then-Senator Barack Obama.
There are a few key differences between Palin and Clinton, obviously. Clinton doesn’t have a penchant for saying things that are easily twisted. She also doesn’t have Palin’s charisma. And Clinton’s rock-star status comes almost begrudgingly, as her approval rating only climbs when she is not in the public eye. Palin, on the other hand, was the most popular governor in the country before Sen. John McCain selected her as his vice presidential candidate. Her approval has certainly fallen given the vastly negative press she received.
Which brings up another similarity: both women have opponents willing to go to extreme lengths to attack them. Palin was blamed for the shooting of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords because of a campaign map featuring a target over the Arizona representative’s district. Andrew Stiles of the Washington Free Beacon is on a mission to remind America that Clinton is nearly 70 and convince them she is possibly disabled (although he does so in jest, for the most part).
Palin’s detractors were serious.
For Palin, she stood for something that Republicans could get behind – she embodied much of the early Tea Party spirit before the movement was founded and represented what conservatives had been clamoring for since Ronald Reagan left office – a non-establishment Republican.
Clinton, however, doesn’t appear to embody anything Democrats supposedly desire. As my colleague Tim Carney wrote on Tuesday, Clinton actually represents everything Democrats are supposed to be against: war, secrecy, big money and seedy political connections.
This is not meant to be a defense of Palin, rather, a critical look at the way the liberal media tries to disparage every Republican woman by comparing them to someone the Left despises. Every promising or perceived-as-promising conservative woman is pigeon-holed into the caricature of Palin.
Meanwhile, the rock-star status Palin obtained and used to secure a lucrative speaking tour is similar to that of Clinton. Perhaps – and I pray the day never comes – we will some day see a Hillary Clinton reality show?
